Juliet, in heaven (4.5.65-74)

FRIAR              Peace ho, for shame! Confusion’s cure lives not

                        In these confusions. Heaven and yourself

                        Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,

                        And all the better is it for the maid:

                        Your part in her you could not keep from death,

                        But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.

                        The most you sought was her promotion,

                        For ’twas your heaven she should be advanced,

                        And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced

                        Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? (4.5.65-74)

There is rather the sense that if the Friar doesn’t intervene at this point, they could just keep going, repeating themselves. What he has to say is utterly conventional, in the Christian consolation he offers, but it is set out with great clarity and logic. He demonstrates that he knows his audience well; he knows what they need (or at least what will temporarily calm them down and make them listen). We might have seen him as weak or wavering in previous scenes, but actually here he is doing well, combining forcefulness and compassion. He is being a good priest. He acknowledges the terrible upset of the situation, its confusion, its fundamental disorder, but reminds them that their frenzy here, their clamour is only adding to that confusion; it cannot change things or provide any consolation. So instead, here is bracing, even stern, Christian doctrine. Juliet was a child of God, of heaven, as much as of her parents (and her Nurse); she is now wholly heaven’s, and that can only be a good thing. (Well, Susan is with God, she was too good for me.) The part of Juliet that was her family’s was the mortal part; the immortal will live on, in heaven. And then, demonstrating that he has been listening to Capulet in particular, and that he knows him well: the most you sought was her promotion. We know that all you wanted was for Juliet to marry well, to be advanced in social terms; that was your idea of heaven (this is pushing it a bit, Friar). But then there is that concluding image of Juliet soaring above the clouds, as high as heaven itself – and we should think of the balcony, and the way in which the lovers have so frequently invoked flight, the sky, the clouds, the sun. Wherever Juliet is at this moment, if she dreams, she surely dreams of Romeo.

 

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